I have browsed a number of forums for a definitive answer, but so far none has come forward, so... Owners of Cowon X7s can you tell me if playback is truly gapless for flac files? I have a J3 & S9 and they are truly gapless playing flac files (the only type of file I use). My old D2 was not gapless, and I found it annoying listening to some of my mixes where one song flows into the next, and then [pause]. Despite all the negatives I've read about the X7, I would purchase one for the hard drive space if playback were truly gapless. The latest firmware update says that Cowon has "improved" gapless playback. That does not sound encouraging. Can anyone who has an X7 tell me the real story?

Yes, the X7 has gapless playback for flac files, but there is one major issue: apparently, when the screen is off, gapless playback doesn't work properly. Until this bug is fixed, you will have keep the screen on during playback, which of course drains the battery. Unfortunately, Cowon doesn't seem to be in a hurry to update the X7 firmware :-(
On the positive side: if - like me - having a state-of-the-art user interface and touchscreen isn't your primary concern (both are much better on for example the J3 or S9), but audio quality is, the X7 is by far the best player available.

Thanks for the reply. I'm definitely a Cowon fan. I don't care about video, and the touchscreen interface isn't terribly important either. What I care about is quality sound (otherwise I'd use mp3 files), and every Cowon I've owned has had excellent sound.

The gapless problem with the screen off isn't necessarily a deal breaker, but I guess I'll hold off a few more months and watch for firmware upgrades. I assume you are using 2.08? It is a bit worrysome that the last firmware update was in February. One wonders whether they are working on a successor to the X7 instead of improving their existing product?

Yes, I'm using 2.08. You might want to try the the customized firmware offered by other users (you can find a few on this forum). Perhaps they have found a solution? Although I doubt it, I get the impression that their aim is to improve user interface and not fix bugs (if possible at all). But who knows...

And I agree with you that Cowon doesn't seem very interested in upgrading the X7, which is strange for a product that is relatively new. A real shame, because just a few basic improvements would make the X7 so much better!

Regarding the sound quality: I had the X5 (which died after a friend of my sister dropped it, grrr) and still have the S9. The S9 has good sound quality, but I've always believed that it didn't match up to the X5. The X7, however, is a totally different story. In my opinion it sounds even better than the X5, and obviously has a lot more options to enhance the sound even further.

In the end it's all about the music, storage capacity & battery. So I bought the X7, and I like it despite the "step back" that others complain about. I like the weight & the build quality--better USB cover than the J3--more like the S9. The headphone jacks on both my S9 & J3 have developed bad connections after heavy use. Jiggle the jack and you get pops and crackles. I hope the X7 wears better there. Time will tell.

Sure, the screen could be AMOLED and the album cover art needs to be fixed, but neither interferes with the awesome sound the X7 delivers. I agree with you on that, mdk1970.

Some have claimed that the Chakra UI fixed the album art, but that didn't happen for me. There ought to be a stretch/center option for album art on the next firmware update (if there is an update). The current stretch mode interferes with the album information scrolled across the top of the music screen. This should be a simple fix (C'mon Cowon, Feburary was a long time ago).

I installed the latest Lynx UI (Kizune you're the man!) and I like the result. I haven't investigated the gapless issue yet, but even if the X7 never achieves gapless playback, it's still a nice PMP for the price.

I also installed Kizune's "Leaf" and got the folders to behave nicely, always opening where I want.

With Lynx, Sense & Leaf, the X7 is a sweet PMP.

Gapless playback can be solved with FLAC. I did quite huge research of possible settings which could improve this terrible X7 problem. If you use FLAC level 0, you will get gapless playback. Size difference between commonly used level 6 and level 0 is very small, therefore there is no significant impact to player capacity.
Trader's Little Helper has a mode to re-encode FLAC without necessity to manualy extract FLAC to WAV and encode back to FLAC level 0.
Gapless playback is very important for me, therefore I was very frustrated when I realised that this feature is not supported by X7. That's something I wouldn't expect from such device and such manufacturer . Fortunately, FLAC level 0 saved my day .